Trump says U.S. will skip G20 in South Africa over claims about Afrikaner treatment

# Trump says U.S. will skip G20 in South Africa over claims about Afrikaner treatment

The United States will not send government officials to the G20 summit in South Africa, President Donald Trump said on 2025-11-08, escalating a diplomatic row that has already drawn sharp denials from Pretoria.

Trump said the decision was tied to what his administration describes as abuses against Afrikaners, including violence, death and land confiscation. He had already said he would not attend the annual gathering of leaders from the world's major economies, but a source familiar with Vice President JD Vance's schedule said Vance also would no longer travel there. That leaves the U.S. without a planned government presence at the summit.

The boycott is the latest expression of a broader Trump administration campaign against South Africa. The White House has repeatedly accused the South African government of failing to protect minority white Afrikaner farmers. In February, the administration cut annual refugee admissions to 7,500 and said most of the new arrivals would be white South Africans who it claimed faced discrimination and violence at home.

South African officials have rejected the portrayal. President Cyril Ramaphosa has said he told Trump that allegations of persecution were “completely false.” Government officials in South Africa have also argued that white residents, more than three decades after the end of apartheid, still generally enjoy a much higher standard of living than Black South Africans.

The dispute has been building for months. Trump said earlier in the week that South Africa should be removed from the Group of 20. Secretary of State Marco Rubio also boycotted a G20 foreign ministers meeting earlier this year after objecting to its agenda, which focused on diversity, inclusion and climate change.

The summit itself is a major diplomatic forum for rich and emerging economies, and the U.S. absence could complicate efforts to present a unified front on trade, conflict and economic coordination. It also underscores how quickly U.S.-South Africa relations have deteriorated under Trump's renewed criticism of the country.

The administration has not said whether the boycott is temporary or whether it could extend to other G20 meetings. For now, the decision removes the United States from the summit at a moment when the host government has already been forced to answer direct accusations from Washington about race, land and security.

South Africa has not publicly indicated any change to the summit plans in response to the boycott announcement.